What is it about?
During the last Glacial Maximum (~19K years ago) and Heinrich Stadial 1 (~18-15K years ago), wind and humidity changes increased the loading of Saharan dust to the atmospheric of ~2.5-2 times today's values. We hypothesized that the cooling and freshening caused by this dust can improve model comparison to paleo proxy and caused a decrease of the meridional overturning circulation, cooling further the North Atlantic. This paper tests this hypothesis and shows that Saharan dust was important for climate during that period.
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Why is it important?
Paleo climate model simulations are subject to many uncertainties in the forcing and also from uncertainties in proxy reconstruction. During the last Heinrich Event, strong freshwater discharge in the north Atlantic may have shut down the meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), and cooled the North Atlantic even further. Comparing the simulations with and without dust to paleo proxy, we showed that dust was a factor to decrease the AMOC up to 25% and cooled the North Atlantic by 2C.
Perspectives
Understanding the main factors that drove the past climate variability can improve our knowledge of the future.
Dr. Marlos Goes
Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Role of African Dust in Atlantic Climate During Heinrich Events, Paleoceanography, November 2017, American Geophysical Union (AGU),
DOI: 10.1002/2017pa003150.
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